1. Field Of The Invention
The present invention pertains to a baby bottleneck for mounting between a standard baby bottle and a standard baby bottle nipple which allows the neck portion to be angularly maintained to provide a more natural flow of foods to nursing infants.
More particularly the invention pertains to an adjustable baby bottleneck which accepts on one end a standard infant nursing bottle and at the other end accepts a standard infant nursing nipple and which between the two ends of the adjustable bottleneck provides an angular setting from between 0 degrees to 60 degrees to provide a more natural delivery of food to nursing infants to accommodate a variety of feeding positions of nursing infants.
The adjustability and setting of the baby bottleneck as well as its adaption to the use of disposable liners allows the utilization of standard baby bottles and the use of standard infant nipples which can be easily cleaned and sterilized with the adjustable baby bottleneck. The adjustability and setting of the neck portion as well as the utilization of the tapered and offset channelling passage reduces the amount of air drawn into the baby's stomach during feeding through either the bottle or around the sides of the standard nipple.
2. Description Of The Prior Art
With respect to the known prior art reference has been made to Stephenson, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,387, Klag U.S. Pat. No. 5,190,174, Cohen, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,969,564, Garvin U.S. Pat. No. 5,234,117, Wu, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,928,836 and Lawrence U.S. Pat. No. 4,813,556. These prior art devices and references generally recognize the advantages of having the nipple in non-axial alignment with the bottle to provide advantages in infant feeding to reduce the amount of air drawn by the infant through the bottle. The amount of air drawn into a baby's stomach during feeding is not limited to air drawn through the bottle but also includes air drawn from around the sides of the nipple at the interface between the nipple and the baby's mouth which generally is ingested into the baby's stomach which air has to be removed by burping or results in infant colic.
One of the solutions provided in the prior art of Stephenson, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,387 to reducing the amount of air during infant feeding is to provide a non-coaxial alignment of the center axis of the bottle with the center axis of the nipple by dividing the bottle into an upper part, which is in non-alignment, with the lower part of the bottle so that the axis of the upper part is inclined at an angle to the axis of the lower part of the bottle. This approach to solving the problem results in the necessity of utilizing a specially constructed baby bottle which is expensive to produce and difficult to clean since the angled neck of the bottle provides an inaccessible location for cleaning. In addition the non standard baby bottle of Stephenson, et al. '387 requires special handling, special construction and does not allow for adjustability since the angle of the axis is set in the bottle at the time of manufacture.
The baby bottle of Stephenson, et al. '387 furthermore can allow significant amounts of air to be drawn from the bottle during nursing since the bottleneck is of generally the same diameter at the upper portion and the lower portion of the baby bottle and does not include a channelling passage that is either tapered or offset to reduce the amount of air that can be drawn through the nipple. The absence or a channelling passage alone or in combination with the inability to use a disposable liner allows the introduction of air through the nipple which is centrally located to the upper portion of the modified bottle when the level of liquid in the bottle reaches a low level.
The invention in contrast to Stephenson, et al. '387 employs a standard infant nursing bottle with a standard nursing nipple and utilizes a specially designed neck which includes a channeling passage which may be tapered, offset or employ a liner to reduce the amount of air that can be drawn through the nursing nipple. The neck of the invention furthermore is adjustable which maintains a more perfect alignment between the volume of liquid in the bottle and the center axis of the standard nursing nipple.
Other prior art such as Klag, U.S. Pat. No. 5,190,174 employs a standard nursing bottle but employs a special nipple which has a corrugated or swivel portion which allows the nipple to bend between the bottleneck and the end of the nipple. Klag '174 unlike the invention does not utilize a standard nipple but instead modifies the nipple to make the rubber nipple bend to conform to a position where the nipple is substantially in alignment with the center line of the mouth of the infant. The corrugated nipple of Klag '174 is at its untensioned state in alignment with the center axis of the bottle. This arrangement may significantly reduce the amount of air drawn by the infant through the nipple from the bottle but instead allows air to be drawn through the sides of the mouth between the interface of the infant's mouth and the nipple due to the angular pressure placed between the nipple and the sides of the infant's mouth. In addition Klag '174 requires specialized nipples which include an internal corrugated portion which makes cleaning and sterilization of the nipple more difficult and the production of the nipples more expensive.
The invention unlike the prior art utilizes both standard bottles and standard nipples and does not require pressure or tension between the sides of the mouth of the nursing infant and the nipple to achieve its advantages. As a result the adjustable baby bottleneck of the invention results in lesser amounts of air being drawn into the infant's mouth during nursing from not only around the sides of the mouth but also through the bottle as a result of the manner in which the baby bottleneck provides an adjustment and a self maintenance of that adjustment which does not interfere with the natural interface between the baby's mouth and the nipple while providing a channelling for fluids inside the bottle to maintain a relationship between the liquid inside the bottle and the centerline of the nipple to reduce the amount of air that can be drawn into the baby's stomach during nursing.
Other prior art such as Cohen, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,969,564 and Garvin U.S. Pat. No. 5,234,117 have somewhat adjustable or angular bottlenecks which accommodate a bending between the bottle and the nipple. Cohen, et al. '564 however as indicated in FIG. 1 requires the infant to manually maintain the angle between the nipple and the bottle in order to prevent air from being entrained into the baby's mouth between the interface between the nipple and the infant's mouth. Garvin '117 has replaced the nipple with a straw-like delivery opening which replaces the standard nipple. In both Garvin and Cohen more mature infant's are required to utilized the apparatus of such prior art. On the other hand the apparatus of the present invention is readily utilizable by infant's of all ages.
Lawrence U.S. Pat. No. 4,813,556 like Stephenson, et al. U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,387 pertains to a specially constructed bottle which is without liners and difficult to clean and expensive to manufacture. Lawrence '556 employs the bellows for the removal of air when used with or without a liner which requires the bellows to have insufficient body to maintain a particular position in accordance with the invention.
The device of the invention unlike all of the prior art utilizes a standard baby nursing bottle at one end and a standard baby nursing nipple at the other end and imparts angular adjustability through a specially designed neck portion which is adjustable from an angle of about 0 to 60 degrees and which maintains that angular adjustment once the angular position is manually set by the person feeding the infant. This angular adjustment can be set at an infinite number of angles depending upon the posture of the infant during feeding, i.e. whether the infant is reclined, semi-reclined or sitting up.
The invention unlike the prior art reduces air drawn into the mouth through either the inside of the bottle or between the interface between the infant's mouth and the nipple by removing angular stress between the infant's mouth and the nipple and by providing a more perfect passage between the center line of the nipple with the liquid in the center line of the bottle. This arrangement ensures that when the milk inside drops to a low level the angular relationship between center line of the nipple and the center line of the bottle does not allow air to enter the infant's mouth through the center of the nipple. In addition and at the same time stress between the standard nipple and the angular relationships between the nipple and the bottle is carried primarily by the adjustable bottleneck so that the interface between the infant's mouth and the nipple does not provide tension which allows air to be entrained through the sides of the infant's mouth and thereby swallowed. These advantages are particularly beneficial since the advantages remain constant irrespective of the position of the infant once the person feeding the infant properly adjusts the adjustable bottleneck to accommodate the posture of the feeding infant.
The invention provides further advantages over the prior art in providing a completely disassemblable device which allows all parts to be easily cleaned without leaving corners and traps for food and bacteria. The invention further provides advantages in accommodating not only the standard nursing bottle but also bottles with liners which have also been used in recent years to reduce the amount of air drawn through the nipple from the bottle by allowing the liner to gradually collapse as the contents are drawn out through the nipple. In either of these applications the adjustable bottleneck of the invention utilizes standard nipples and standard bottles and allows the neck portion to be infinitely adjustable to the feeding posture of the infant and reduces the amount of air the infant can either draw from the bottle through the nipple or can draw into its mouth through the sides of the mouth between the interface between the nipple and the bottle to thereby reduce the amount of air the infant can consume while feeding. These advantages are achieved through an inexpensive adjustable bottleneck which is easily cleaned, fabricated and added to available on the shelf standard bottles and nipples to overcome the disadvantages and drawbacks of the prior art while providing significant benefits to feeding infants of all ages.